The Hope Factory Read online

  “If it is so terrible,” said Kamala, “do it yourself then.”

  “I most certainly cannot,” said Shanta. “Vidya-ma has forbidden me. Poor old man!”

  Kamala managed with quiet grumbles—until Vidya-ma summoned her irritably one day. “Kamala, what is this nonsense? Shanta says that all our food is getting delayed because of the time you take over some simple dishes. Why is this?” Vidya-ma was seated at the computer, her fingers clicking on the keys in time to her speech. “And you must clean the utensils as soon as you are done. She has to reuse them, doesn’t she? You cannot behave as though the kitchen is only for your use. You must learn to adjust with others….”

  Yes, Vidya-ma, said Kamala and went in search of Thangam. This was intolerable.

  But Thangam was full of her own woes and was not of a mind to listen patiently to Kamala’s bitter grumbles. “At least you don’t have to clean the full upstairs, as I have to,” she said. “I tell you, sister, by the time I get through my day, I am so exhausted, my very bones hurt. By the way,” she said, her face full of a recent worry, “what has happened to your neighbor?”

  “Neighbor?” said Kamala. “Which one? That drunken Chikkagangamma? Such a sad story! Her children are still working and sleeping in that canteen.”

  Thangam interrupted. “No, no. That young girl! Married to the machine tool operator. Your direct neighbor!”

  “Oh, that one. So disrespectful! Yes, she was saying something,” said Kamala, trying to recall. “Aanh. Yes. Her husband has lost his job. Perhaps now she will learn some humility. Why do you ask?”

  Thangam was looking horrified. “Lost his job? And you could not tell me this? You keep silent!”

  Kamala eyed her in genuine confusion. “Thange? Why does it matter to you?”

  Thangam flung her duster down. “Because she has missed her last two payments for the chit fund, that’s why! If she cannot pay, I have to pay! How can you ask this! I tell you, Kamala-sister, not all of us are propertied as you are. No, do not deny it. That girl told me—she heard it directly from your brother himself. You have all the luck—so do not come here and complain. How on earth am I to find the money she owes for the chit fund? And what about the months that remain? Tell me that!”

  “Do you not have savings, Thange?” Kamala asked tentatively. She knew that Thangam liked to spend and also supported her family every month, but still …

  “Whatever I have will be wiped out in a couple of months if she doesn’t pay, akka,” said Thangam, wretchedly. “All of it will go…. This chit fund is so large…. Cursed thing!”

  Kamala put her arm around the crying Thangam. “I am sure she will pay, sister,” she said. “Do not worry. Do not cry. Come now! And,” she said, when Thangam eventually wiped her eyes on the edge of her khameez, “I do not know what you have heard, but I am not propertied. That is not true. I have to work for every paisa just like every other human on this earth.”

  Thangam sighed and involuntarily ran her hand over the glittering silk dupatta lying tossed on the bed. “Except Vidya-ma,” she said. “She does not have to work for her paisa.”

  APART FROM THE SKIRMISHES with Shanta, Kamala very quickly settled into her new duties. Anand-saar’s father was very different from his son. Old-school in his manner and behavior, his needs simple, disciplined, and meticulous, reminding Kamala of the schoolteacher in the village, who had combined an interest in furthering the education of the village children with a strict brahminical aversion to letting them within two feet of him. When he asked something of Kamala, his voice was peremptory: “Girl!” he would call, and Kamala would go running, to fetch the flowers for his pooja that she procured each morning on her way to work; to ready his bath, placing the stool in front of a steaming bucket of water and the mug in readiness; to fetch his food, freshly cooked and piping hot. After this flurry of morning activity, she cleaned his room and washed his clothes, and only when that was done could she turn her attention to all her other chores: the cleaning of the downstairs, which Thangam, on principle, now refused to help her with, and the myriad other duties that Vidya-ma—who seemed unaware of Anand-saar’s strictures to the contrary—kept adding, daily, to her list.

  Kamala returned home later and later each evening, until Narayan’s face started appearing worriedly at the gate, waiting patiently for her until he was discovered there one day by Vyasa and dragged in to meet the grandfather.

  The first Kamala learned of this was when she entered the grandfather’s bedroom, carrying his evening palaharam meal of fruit and hot, unsweetened milk and saw her son there. Valmika was on the bed, engrossed in her grandfather’s stories about his own childhood in Mysore, so different from hers. Vyasa, having quickly lost interest in what was to him a bland and unheroic narrative, was absorbed instead in the activities of Narayan, who was carefully mending a bedside light.

  Kamala did not know what to say, but she was saved from the effort by Anand-saar himself, who had entered the room behind her.

  “Ah, very good, you have fixed it,” he said. “Clever boy. I was planning to call an electrician for that.”

  Narayan grinned shyly. “It was just a loose wire, sir,” he said and proceeded to screw the fixture firmly back in place.

  The grandfather seemed pleased as well. “He has done a good job,” he pronounced. “Yes. Is he studying hard in school? That is very important.” Kamala did not know if she was expected to answer this question, but once again, Anand-saar spoke: “Yes, it is very important…. Pingu, I hope you are listening to your grandfather?”

  Kamala was thrilled at Anand-saar’s praise of her son and hugged her pride to herself. She was careful not to mention it to anyone, but nevertheless, that simple moment of excessive pride was enough to invite jealous mischance—for the very next evening, she proceeded to burn Anand-saar’s shirt.

  She was busy ironing, but her attention was focused on ignoring the steady, poisonous drip of Shanta’s grumbles. Kamala concentrated so hard and with such a sense of victory that when she finally looked down, the shirt was burnt. Shanta had her back to her; she hadn’t seen. Quickly, Kamala folded the shirt and thrust it to the bottom of the pile of ironed clothes.

  Upstairs she scurried, before anyone could notice, and buried the burnt shirt right at the back of Anand-saar’s clothes cupboard, praying it would not be discovered until weeks later, when everyone had forgotten who had done the ironing on that particular day.

  But when she heard Vidya-ma’s voice raised in anger, Kamala knew her plan had failed. The three of them in the kitchen eyed one another.

  “Go,” said Shanta to Thangam.

  “No,” said Thangam. “What does she want this time? You go,” she said to Kamala, who vigorously shook her head. Thangam sighed. “Coming, amma!” she called, but she had barely hidden her accounts books away when Vidya-ma burst into the kitchen. “Have I lost my voice, or have you all lost your hearing?” she cried. “I’ve been shouting and shouting! What is wrong with you all?”

  Kamala expected to see the burnt shirt flying like a wartime military banner, but no, fortunately Vidya-ma’s hands were empty; she was upset about something else. Kamala lowered her eyes prudently to the curd rice she was mixing for the grandfather.

  “I simply cannot find my dupatta,” Vidya-ma said. “I have looked and looked. Where is it? Peacock blue with gold weave. Where is it?”

  Kamala did not open her mouth. She had seen that dupatta just the previous day, in the ironing pile. Shanta had pulled it out and could not resist fingering it, her harsh face softened by an unusual yearning. “So pretty. This must be very expensive, no? Very expensive.” By rights, that dupatta should have gone upstairs with the other ironed clothes. It was not in the current pile of laundry either; its glorious colors were too bright to miss. Could Shanta have been tempted? She too seemed frozen where she stood, next to the stove.

  “Don’t worry, amma,” said Thangam. “We will find it.”

  “You’d better,” said Vidya
-ma. “I’m not having my things missing, on top of everything. Find it right away!”

  Kamala put the curd rice, lime pickle, and a plate on a tray and left the room; by the time she returned with the empty dishes, Thangam had smoothly produced the dupatta. “Where did you find it?” Kamala whispered, but Thangam, instead of implicating Shanta, merely said: “Under that pile of laundry, where else?” and would say no more.

  Kamala knew it was useless to pursue the question. Her mind traveled, unbidden, to the Diwali party, to the end of that strange and glorious night.

  It was close to the dawn. The lights were out in much of the house; Anand-saar and Vidya-ma had retired for the night. The messy aftermath of the party had been tidied. The kitchen was the only area that was still brightly lit. Kamala was spending the night and was to sleep alongside Shanta and Thangam on a bedroll. Their work was finally done; Narayan lay fast asleep in the darkened storeroom; in a couple of hours, Kamala would rouse him and send him home. She herself would follow as soon as she could.

  Kamala felt her face fold downward with fatigue, her ears buzzing, a rush of relief through her body. Thangam was inspecting the almost empty bottles of soft drinks and alcohol that lay on the kitchen table.

  “Did you see him, sisters?” Thangam asked, referring to the film star. “Did you see how splendid he looked? What do you fancy, sister?” She glanced at Kamala.

  “Is it permitted?” Kamala asked, eyeing the bottles on the table.

  “Why not?” Thangam shrugged carelessly. “We were asked to throw these away, were we not? What difference does it make if we dispose of them in our stomachs or in the dustbin outside?”

  Kamala made her way over to the table and, after some hesitation, chose the dark brown cola that was usually advertised by a pretty actress who always seemed to be enjoying herself when she drank it. She poured herself a glass and, on impulse, added two ice cubes to it from the bag that lay melting in the sink. She sipped it gratefully; her budget rarely left room for such luxuries.

  “Are you not having any yourself, sister?” she asked Thangam.

  “I will,” said Thangam. She poured a little of the soft drink into a glass. Then she picked up a bottle of whiskey and poured the leavings into the same glass. “Ah,” she said. “What a man he was.”

  Kamala glanced uncertainly at Shanta. But the cook was leaning against a counter and did not meet her gaze. Thangam filled a second tumbler with a similar concoction and handed it to Shanta.

  Kamala hastily took a sip of her own drink in an effort to hide her shock. To drink alcohol as a female meant that you were very rich or very poor—in either case beyond the confines of ordinary respectability and dignity.

  Thangam swallowed her whiskey and cola, and switched on the kitchen television. The screen was very small and the remote control had long since stopped working, but none of them cared. By a strange coincidence, their own personal film star, the hero of the party just finished, appeared on the screen, in a song and dance they had seen him perform a hundred times before. Thangam watched mesmerized, her empty glass in her hand. She set it down and began to move along with the actor, her steps in perfect timing, her arms raised, her breasts and hips thrusting forward in a manner that grew increasingly provocative.

  “Come, sister.” Thangam waved a hand, but Shanta merely emptied her own glass and walked over to the drinks, collecting Thangam’s glass en route. This time, she filled them both with only alcohol.

  After finishing a third drink, Shanta joined in Thangam’s dancing, her face transformed, their bodies moving in full enjoyment, oblivious to their audience. “Will you not join us, sister?” Thangam asked Kamala at one point.

  “Nay, I thank you,” said Kamala, scrupulously polite, careful to display neither bemusement or disgust. “My back hurts too much.”

  Shanta turned to Kamala—but with none of her usual hostility. “He is a good lad, your son,” she said, smiling, leaning close, her words smelling of the sour-sharp whiff of alcohol. “Yes,” said Kamala, not knowing if she should feel repelled or happy. She would have said more, but Thangam was already making a lewd comment about the film star that caused Shanta to double up in laughter. When they had finally lain down, the three of them, to sleep, Kamala realized that this was not the first time they had done this, these two. None of this was new to either. Not the late-night drinking, not Thangam’s lewd dancing and comments, and not the manner in which Shanta too began to unravel before her very eyes, giggling foolishly, her hair unwinding, her laughter turning coarse and free.

  And on the heels of that awareness came another—that this, then, was the inexplicable liaison that existed between these two women, which Kamala had sensed but never before understood. This was what kept them united despite all the daytime bickering, this unseemly core of secretive understanding that was absent in her own relationships with either. It was nothing she would ever discuss with anyone else; it still raised odd feelings of discomfort within her when she thought of it. She had, for the most part, pushed it out of her mind.

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, ANAND-SAAR summoned her to his study.

  “Me?” said Kamala. “Why does he wish to see me? Why do you suppose?”

  “I do not know,” said Thangam. “You might find out if you deign to go meet him.”

  Kamala made her way to the study, a dozen guilty thoughts flying like scared crows through her mind. That shirt? Could he have found it already and known through some mysterious investigative process that it was her hand that had done the scorching? Or, worse, did he wish to speak to her about the computer?

  If Thangam obsessed about Vidya-ma’s wardrobe and liked to play with her lotions and cosmetics when their mistress was away, Kamala had her own, very different set of fascinations about the house. Occasionally she might linger in Vyasa’s room, examining his things, wishing them for her son. But the true object of her secret fantasies was in the upstairs living room, on the table next to the window. This computer was used by the children and Vidya-ma, and here, every single day, Kamala felt herself grow greedy with desire.

  This complicated gadget, with its little alphabet keys and shiny screen, the big box that rested under the desk and hummed—this was magic. Somehow, she would see to it that Narayan’s education would lead him to this, to mastery over the computer and the tapped incantations that allowed the screen to glow to life and hum under the fingertips. To master that knowledge would make his future soar. Sometimes when the family went out and in the hallowed silence of their absence, while Thangam drank tea in the kitchen and listened to Shanta’s diatribes, Kamala would give in to her urges and press down on the keys, in imitation of the movements she had seen the children make. Most of the time nothing happened; the screen lay black and blank. Only once had she gotten a response; she pressed a key, the screen sprang to cheerful life, and in the shock of it Kamala realized that the computer had not been switched off and kept ready for her play; it had been left on; the black screen had been deceptive. With trembling hasty fingers, she had turned the main power switch off and watched in agony as the screen pinged back into darkness like something killed.

  Four hours passed on that dreary day before the family returned from their outing. She waited tensely for the first scream of discovery, for them to notice the meddling that had destroyed the computer, but nothing happened. When she ventured upstairs after a few minutes, Valmika was at the computer, typing. Her tampering had not been noted; the machine had somehow, like a compliant lover in a secret affair, managed to keep Kamala’s flirting concealed.

  Now, she fretted. Had Anand-saar learned of her computer-meddling?

  “Come in,” said Anand-saar. “Kamala, I am very happy with the care you are taking of my father. You are responsible and reliable.” He hesitated. “Are you facing any problems?”

  “No, saar,” said Kamala. She did not say: Actually, sir, Vidya-ma is so angry and she directs all her anger big and small at whoever stands around at that moment; Shanta is Ravana’
s progeny, a veritable she-demon; Thangam is consumed by her own problems right now; and I would indeed appreciate it if I could manage to leave work at the time I am supposed to each day. “No problems, saar,” she said.

  “Good, good,” said Anand-saar. “But, I wanted to talk to you about Narayan.”

  Kamala rushed into nervous speech. “I’m so sorry, saar. Pingu was the one that called him in…. I will tell him, saar, tell him to wait outside.”

  “Kamala.” Anand-saar spoke patiently. “That is no problem. He is very smart. How old is he?”

  “Twelve running, sir.”

  “And is he working hard at school?”

  Kamala told him truthfully that Narayan was the most clever boy imaginable and, mendaciously, that he was very diligent at his studies.

  “Good,” said Anand-saar. “I am pleased to hear that. Education is the only way he will progress in life. Which school is he attending?”

  “The government school, saar,” said Kamala and was not at all surprised when Anand-saar frowned.

  “That is not good. He will learn nothing there,” he said. “Now, I feel that education is very important. It is the only way our children can progress in life…. I work with a small trust that helps to educate young boys and girls. Would you like me to sponsor Narayan’s education?”

  In an instant, transformational moment, Kamala’s opinion of her employer shifted from tolerant indifference to passionate, astonished devotion.

  “We can place him in an English-medium school close by—and tutor him in English so he can catch up,” said Anand-saar. “But he must work hard and prove himself worthy.”